Willow (the_willow) wrote in 100_willow, @ 2008-11-13 10:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | access: library, feeling: dislike, genre: fantasy = urban, with: magic |
Skullduggery Pleasant (unfinished)
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
Not a good book. Not a good book at all.
As I said in my private journal, I have a finely tuned hair trigger against the minimization of trauma. When G.W.Bush was telling the country after 9/11 to go on as if nothing had happened, I got incredibly pissed off. It took therapy to help me realize why. And yet I took three or four attempts at this book, unable to understand why I just couldn't sink into it.
The writing of itself is not pedantic. This is ok prose. And the setting and premise while somewhat cliche hinted at new possibilities of storytelling. So it took me a while to realize why I wasn't biting.
And now I give some things away:
It was about the fourth, I think, attempt on the young female protagonist's life, where afterwards she tries to obliquely get around to telling the person (skeleton) Skullduggery Pleasant that she wants to learn magic for me to realize what was absolutely wrong.
It's not unheard of for someone to be told there's an unseen world of magic all around them and for them to then wonder if they can learn it or be part of that world. What is unbelievable for me is to have a book beginning where someone or something, she's not quite sure at all, calls her in the middle of the night and makes threats. Then shows up at her door, demanding to be let in, banging and goading her and talking about killing her. That individual then BREAKS INTO THE HOUSE and ATTACKS HER and it's all very real. She's frantic and crying and terrified and then Mr. Bones (much easier than typing his full name) shows up and engages in a fight. It's not even that he immediately saves the day - he has to fight.
The aftermath of that is realistic. She faints. She needs sugary tea. She's uncertain about being left alone. But then all still in the SAME NIGHT, the car she's in gets attacked, then she gets attacked and chased, by the same individual as the first time and ends up near drowning to be rid of him. And she also gets mesmerized by someone whom she is bluntly told could easily have enslaved her for life.
The aftermath of these attempts is NOT shown. She's perfectly able to leave her house the next day and be by herself at a park, while thinking over events. And as she thinks them over, she realizes that a beloved relative was MURDERED. And she, the female protagonist of teen years and early teens at that, is overcome with righteous anger and calm. Not fear, not 'OMGWTF have I gotten involved in!' But...
"I shall learn magic and save the day!"
Even effing Harry Potter tinkled in his pants a little when people attacked him with the intent of ending his life. I can handle a noble warrior facing the unknown when they are in fact a noble and experienced warrior. But I cannot believe in a young girl more concerned about learning magic than about staying alive or keeping her parents (whom she loves) alive when it's already been proved to her that a beloved adult can die/be murdered.
Maybe if the author hadn't shown her actually realistically paralyzed by fear earlier, then her later seeming blase wouldn't have been so jarring. But as it was, I just barely kept myself from throwing the book across the room in disgust. Fear is a valid emotion. It's a healthy emotion. And one is not made weaker by being terrified. If you have to skip some things with 'And a week later, having come to a decision' - I'll be far more satisfied than a character jumping head long into things after being shown to consider such realistic things like who calls at midnight? And 'my relative died because someone wanted something he had'.
Sudden extreme violence and people actually trying to kill you is not something you get used to. Ever.